Design is all about continuous learning and figuring out how different things can work together to solve a problem or create something of value. It’s a “1+1=3” process, and when you get it right, magic happens.
My introduction to this process—which has since laid the foundation for my career—started in the kitchen, of all places. As a teenager, I’d attempt new dishes for my family, mixing and matching ingredients to see what worked and what didn’t. I learned to think on the fly and got comfortable with failing small and fast. My interest in piecing together ingredients to bring a culinary vision to life evolved into a passion for creating great experiences that offer simple solutions to complex problems through design.
Creating new products, services, and technology solutions requires a similar approach to cooking. You think about what the customer needs, consider how you’ll sell the product, and ask yourself whether it’s technically feasible and how it will be received. Like ingredients in a kitchen, the list of considerations is vast—so how do you know where to begin?
About 90% of the design process is centered around understanding the problem you’re solving (i.e., why the design should exist), then sorting through all options and considerations in order to conceptualize the design. Only then does the process become about molding those decisions together to create something that has a meaningful impact on the customer.
THREE PILLARS OF DESIGN DOING
You might not expect someone raised in rural India who holds a degree in chemical engineering to become a champion of design, but an experience early in my career fundamentally changed my thinking. A collaboration with the design firm IDEO in 2005—well before iPhones, iPads, and the app ecosystem that launched the power of design as it relates to the user experience—provided me with a more structured understanding of how to approach problem solving using design thinking.
We regularly think, talk, and write about design-thinking principles—typically with an understanding that the best designs put people at the center. But now it’s time to shift those conversations. Rather than focusing solely on design thinking, we need to translate the thinking into design doing.
To grow from thinking into doing, my personal and professional experiences have taught me that there are three pillars of design doing.
1. Separate the buyers from the users.
Designers need to be sure they are empathizing with the user. Remember: the person signing the check (the buyer) is often a different person than the one actually using the product.
When it comes to enterprise software, for example, the person who pays for the software has different challenges and motivations than the people using it every day. The business value of the solution needs to resonate with the buyer, but the actual product experience needs to empathize with the user.
Putting empathy at the core of design isn’t easy. Doing so requires an appreciation for the process, a lot of discipline, and robust market research to ensure you can champion the user and not be limited by inputs from buyers regarding their perception of user needs.
2. Test early and test often.
Product teams often try to come up with a polished concept before asking for internal feedback. But incorporating changes at a later, go-to-market stage is a much larger undertaking that can extend the timeline, cause internal misalignment in the team, and limit the impact a solution can have on the user. Instead, the process should include short cycles with fast, efficient iteration. Design doing is about using design as a facilitation activity—one that’s focused on involving a large swath of internal minds to create the best possible outcome.
Though a lot of teams want to do this, design doing requires a focus on building the right kind of culture to make it happen. It needs an environment of psychological safety for the design team and for those providing inputs. I always tell my team that I want to see “ugly prototypes” so that they aren’t afraid to show in-progress design or get inputs from diverse areas within the company.
Testing early and testing often also means you’ll avoid a macro failure. A hundred micro failures along the way will always be better than one macro failure at the end.
3. Leverage data to create a fast feedback loop.
Design is a learning activity, and it’s important for everyone to understand that whatever is released can be improved with future understanding. That’s why you need to have a steady pulse on how the design is working from quantitative and qualitative standpoints, both of which help to inform the next iteration.
Think of the regular software updates on our phones. Those slight tweaks to features and functionality we experience are based on data-driven feedback loops—modern software products are more like building an ever-evolving theme park rather than a singular release event like a blockbuster movie.
Opening yourself up to input on your design from those using your product will only make you smarter, stronger, and more confident as you go forward.
SUCCESSFUL DESIGN
So how do you know when your final design is ready to ship? It’s important to be “urgently patient” throughout the design process, as it can take time to get there even with rapid iterations. However, there will be intermediate milestones and small wins to celebrate throughout if the team is regularly engaging with customers and users, and learning what they like and don’t like. Still, you should never be done with design because that would mean the feedback loop has stopped.
Beyond that, it’s quite simple. You’ll know your design is successful when people love it and want more of it, and when you yourself are proud of it.
